Is all well with Live Tiles on Windows Phone 7.8?

With the Windows Phone 7.8 update finally starting to find its way on board user’s devices, bringing with it the cosmetic upgrades of Windows Phone 8, here at Windows Phone Central our readers are noticing that not all is well for their newly-sized live tiles.

Users over in our forums have spotted that since the 7.8 update, their live tiles (those updated by background tasks at least) do not seem to be refreshing correctly.

A lot of times these issues are device specific, but in this case we’re not convinced. I recently had a conversation with Lawrence Gripper (developer of BBC News Mobile) after he got in touch to ask if we had been receiving an abnormal number of support requests since 7.8, we have. Just like the reviews you'll see for BBC News Mobile, several users have been in touch complaining that their tile seems to have ceased updating now that they have installed the new OS update.

The Details

Now, I’m not certain of the exact problem here, but based on the limited testing I’ve been able to achieve I’m not convinced that the tasks aren’t running (they appear to be). The issue instead may be to do with the shell not updating the tile.

In conversations with our users so far many have reported that their live tiles do update correctly when full sized but will not when the tile is the new smaller sized. Unfortunately this is not entirely consistent so we cannot say for certain that making your tile full sized will bring back updates.

In what may be an entirely unrelated coincidence I have experienced issues with the Windows Phone 8 operating system not refreshing tiles until the tile was manipulated in the shell (or in simple English: resized), so if you’d like to help us nail down this problem, try resizing your tiles if they’re not refreshing properly.

This particular bug can be fixed by the developer, so if you’re a fellow app dev then I can tell you it appears to go away if you switch to entirely locally generated tiles rather than retrieving your tile images over the internet, and ensure you don’t use the same image twice for the front and back of any tile.

The other good news I have been able to confirm is that when an app switches to generating tiles specifically for Windows Phone 7.8 using the reflection method detailed by Microsoft here, again the problem appears to go away.

However, as you might have guessed if you’re reading this far I have not deduced the exact behaviour here (mostly thanks to not yet having 7.8 on my Lumia 800). Evidently something is wrong, some people have fixed it by resizing their tiles, some by re-installing affected apps.

Speak up!

So, here’s where we turn to you readers, have your tiles stopped updating? Is it affecting some apps and not others? Do you have any success stories to share with the community? Please get in touch either in our comments, via the original forum thread here or take our poll below (you can use the m.wpcentral.com site to vote mobile).

Honestly, I've had problems with live tiles since WP7. They really need a better system than having to enter the app every two weeks to get it to work properly.

I've had my Windows Store tile not tell me there are updates for apps on my 920 for over a month now... unless I go search for the apps I own in the store. This happened on my Focus as well.

If my phone is plugged in and connected to WiFi...they should make it that all tiles update. Even if there was a button to update all tiles, I'd be happy. On Galaxy S3, I think there is an option to shake the phone to get their widgets to update.

However... I already did know about having Data on for updates. Before... all I had to do was turn Data on for a few seconds and turn it off (or connect it to Zune software) and then I'd get a whole bunch of updates once I switch back to Wi-Fi. It stopped working for my Focus until I did a complete fresh restart (reinstalling games, apps, etc.). That fixed it.

Now, the same thing is happening again to my 920. I can't get update notifications. I've gone out for the day with cellular data on for hours, but no update notifications... until I check each individual app. I usually find out about updates here, but I'm sure I'm still missing some.

It's either a Windows Phone bug or AT&T issue. I'm thinking it has something to do with multiple live tiles, but who knows? I'll probably do another fresh restart, but I hear that has caused others to brick their 920's. I'm also having issues with the 920 brightness after Portico update, so I'm thinking I should do it anyway.

I'm in the exact same boat - everything I have pinned works except for the Weather Channel app. I've un/reinstalled, turned the background task off/on, etc., but the tile shows the Weather Channel logo and nothing else.
Strangely, when I first updated to 7.8, but before I tried to resize the tile, it worked just fine. Resizing it broke it, though.

The app did/does that in 7.5 too. Sometimes its tied to the 2-week time-out, as in if you haven't opened the app in 2 weeks background tasks will kick off the update list.
But there have been times when even going into the app on 7.5 live tile will just show The Weather Channel for a few hours.

I only had 7.8 for a week prior to getting my Lumia 920 but at the time I only noticed the WPCentral App tile not updating when at small size, which I reported to you guys. So far on WP8 all my tiles update regardless of size.

You might want to add a third category to your survey: Not working for a while, but working again. Mine stopped working within a day or so of the upgrade, but after unpinning live tiles, deleting apps, powering off, and reinstalling the apps with live tiles, I got them going again. I didn't associate the experience with WP7.8 though, since I have had the same thing happen a couple times in the past with WP7.5.
(unlocked Bell LG Quantum on Telus, in Canada)

Push notifications have NEVER worked correct on Windows Phones (WPCentral app seems to be a huge exception) and live tiles are not much better. Skype and Facebook is 2 huge catastrophes and ironically very dependent of push and live tiles.
Windows 8 Live tiles are horrible and I wouldn't trust any of em with my life (maybe mail tile and push).
The hole notification system on new Windows products needs a LARGE bugg fix and a group hug.

I updated my old Omnia 7 to 7,8 last week, all I can say is that the facebook live tile works so much better on that old device now compared to my Lumia 920. I have them side by side and the fb-tile on the 920 is days behind while the Omnia7 is on par with my PC, updates within minutes.

Only skim read this but the other issue is if you restart your phone and say .... Open marketplace, it takes about 4 seconds after tapping the tile for it to do something, after they it launches quicker but still not perfect. Same with other apps

HTC HD7 tiles are real laggy trying to move them around except for the small tile moves somewhat smooth although no problems with weather channel and countdown apps are updating and staying current did notice after update weather wouldnt update the tile did a hard reset and reinstalled all my apps and have had no problems battery seems to be a little better as well

And the sound not being as loud through headphones is a major problem, cannot watch Netflix on the train as can't hear it on my lumia 800, if the 920 is the same may have to look at a different option which may not be WP

I only have 3 live tiles on my start screen, wpcentral, accuweather, and Engadget. Only Engadget works now. Wpcentrl and accuweather do not update. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, rebooted, phone and still no luck. I really don't want to factory reset the phone.

For me it is not all the apps that have problems. There are a few that just won't update the live tile no matter what I try. The two main problem apps for me are Weather Channel and Accuweather. These two apps just display the app icon with no data whatsoever.

That bug from 7.5 is still there, where my phone just stops updating all apps. Sometimes when I come back to my phone, I noticed my email was last checked 8 hours ago, and its set for every 30 mins. :( Battery at 93%, no battery saver turned on.

The only apps I have that don't update are all the twitter apps I have, (rowi, mehdoh, and twabbit), and the sportscores live tile. I think that's the only ones that don't update. And yes I have unistalled and reinstalled multiple times, changed sizes, etc. The only thing I haven't tried was hard resetting, which I might do, but am very hesitant. Good thing wpcentral still works though ;)

That's not an option or viable solution. My IE tabs broke just after Mango (won't open with multiple tabs enabled) and I've needed a factory reset since then. But I have too much data that I will lose, so I'm not going to bother until I upgrade. We shouldn't have to factory reset anything, ever, unless it's practically bricked.

@Jay, off-topic but I really want to turn off the back of the WPC tile completely i.e. no flipping to show an image or article at all. The counter is good, but I don't want anything else. I really don't like tiles to move on my homescreen as it becomes too chaotic. I could make the tile smaller, but it's the main app I use!

I'll make a deal with you... See what you think of the new tiles I'm putting out there in the next update, and if you still don't like them, let me know and I'll add the option for the update after that? You can use the smaller tile in the meantime once the next update is released to bring the count properly on to it

I did find several improvmets on my HD 7.8 like batery improvment,now i always get notification when there is new WI-FI available which i didn't see this one since i bought this phone now i constatly get notification when i got an apdate available for my app,facebook tile i set it on medium size and it works way much bether and when the tile rotate it show my latest post but i do have one question all the tiles that i pin it and set it to the smalest size looks like they don't work in the background except phone,yahoo,hotmaill and deal store app and the rest wich i set it to medium and large size works very well and when i cange some of the smallest size to medium or large they work in background

You did personally it wpcentral did? Also, if you could, gather up a list of apps that do support all tile sizes for 7.8. I know it sounds nitpicky but I have yet to find reliable way to find compatible apps...

My tiles all update fine. One thing I have noticed is that after a couple of days the tile flip animation stops being the WP8 one and goes back to the WP7 tile flip animation. Restarting my phone fixes it though.

My problems started last night. No updates on tiles. Even People's hub wasn't pulling news once opened. I restarted the phone. Now native tiles are fine, but no installed app tiles update; 1800POCKETPC app kept crashing. Also I noticed my battery is draining fast today.
I run HTC Titan 7.8. I feel like something has changed in the passed day cause I had no issues till this incident.

In my case (Lumia 800) I was experiencing 'Dead' tiles issues, even before the update to 7.8... but after reading forums, I managed to fix it:
-. Reduce screen block back to 30 sec.
-. Remove applications on the background list (even if disabled) until the total number was below 20 apps.
I now have 7 apps updating live tiles (outside the know OS apps...)
Happy camper.
The only issue I am experiencing is that the phone seems to become (minimally) non-responsive while downloading data/updates/podcasts... Sometimes to the point I end resetting the phone... Windows phone is so fast that a minimal lag is perceptible... Maybe I should switch back to my N8 (or N97...) to change my point of view and stop arguing for this nonsense... :)

My 7.8 device doesn't have live tile problems rather then having a tab problem in ie everytime I try to close the tab the tab screen is black. Another thing I noticed is the responsiveness to the tiles before the update tiles have been almost instant once I touched them now it takes sometimes a couple seconds for it to respond to my touch

Live tiles not updating is the least of my problems. T-mob HTC Radar 4G upgraded through seveneighter tool. I have lost search. When I press the search button, an Internet Explorer page opens with the desktop version of Bing. Visual search, Local scout, etc, GONE!!. Maps is another issue. I can only see current location, I can not search for a new location or get driving directions. I regret having updated my phone but at the same time, it was the only way. I would have never gotten the update thanks to the geniuses of T-mobile and HTC. Two companies that will never get my business again.

I thought about it but I'm afraid it might screw something else up.This phone is used for business ans I can't afford to brick it. I guess I'll wait and see if HTC decides to release some official upgrade and I'll do it that way, in the meantime, I'll keep using this (even more) crippled phone. One thing is for sure, I wil never buy another HTC product. Thank you for your answer.

I have always had trouble with live tiles. Like a lot of people here weather apps stopped working over a year ago for me. Certain apps have always worked. There must be a push vs pull difference for the live tiles - I am not sure what it is, but I am sure that it is damn annoying.
WPCentral, Fuse, any weather app, et cetera are ones that quit working a long time ago. E-Mail, Newser, XBox Live live tiles always work. I was hopeful that 7.8 would get them working again - oh well.
... and no I don't want to reinstall / wipe everything to get them working again. Did that once and within a week everything was dead again. Very disappointing.
Phone: Samsung Focus, Rogers

For me some 3rd party apps stopped updating live tile just after the 7.8 update. Reinstalling affected apps did not help at all, also resizing trick is no go for me. Currently I have issues with livetile for Bing Wallpaper, Stockmap, Astronomy Hub and few others. I tried to use registry trick to delete endpoints but it did not help as well. Device: Omnia 7

Lumia 710, live tiles have a mind of their own, weatherlive app did not work with its live tile for over a week, contacted the dev and after about a week back and forth, i took photos of the dead live tile, 2 minutes after the photo and without any interaction, it came back to life

I'm not witnessing any serious problems on WP7.8. (Currently using Lumia 710 on T-Mobile US forced updated w/ seveneighter.) Just minor problems such as slower UI (probably due to the more strenuous rendering from the new tile interface), no music lockscreen controls, and a few Marketplace quirks. Besides that, the live tile system works flawlessly for me. I just can't help but wonder why Microsoft would take up to 6 months to release a cosmetic update and not fix the problems associated with WP7.5.

They ruined the music lock screen controls. Now instead of keeping them on the lock screen at all times, it simply triggers the toast when you tap the lock button, but the toast disappears after a few seconds.

And I thought that my HD7 is truely old, so they won't update regularly. From my machine, I can sure the following apps who's live tile don't update regularly:
Weathers.com, Accuweather, WP7applist, Daily Garfield Tile, AP Mobile, USA Today. These are my apps that I stick live tiles to the main screen.

But re-sizing the live tiles doesn't always solve the problem, since not all apps have been updated for WP7.8/8, in that case they will have only one tile size, instead of large one.

well on my arrive it seems that they update and work MOST of the time but apps the rowi and wpcentral app wont go into double wide mode tho.
i cant get some tiles to change setting like for example the wpcentral app i want the back to display text and a picture but it just wont change, at first the rowi app would go into dooble wide mode but it wasnt displaying anything so i deleted and it doesnt even have the option anymore.
and the wechat app wont tell me i have messages until i go into the app.

MS needs to fix this like cmon this platform is falling apart, i bet android widgets dont do this....

7.8 is definitely a BUGGY PRODUCT. I can't believe it was released for production in such weak and unstable shape. The whole 7.8 experience from the start when you had to force the OS update using some "tricks" was simply ridiculous. It already smelled fishy, and that's what we got thereafter - the "partial functionality" comparing to 7.5.
Except People's Hub, Zune, e-mail notification none of my other tiles are functioning in 7.8 environment. They are static, and dynamic anymore. And if they change the context, it happens very randomly, inconsistently - once in a blue moon. This upgrade was kind of a tradeoff: the additional color schemes+bing lock screen image substituted phone's functionality and took away at least couple of hours of the battery power from the daily usage. Seems like phone is now doing some extra background undetected work, constantly and silently failing. This just sucks...

so basically the uptimate fix is to have all the devs re write their apps for 7.8? yeah right like they are going to do that. This is complete bullshit Microsoft. Allof my tiles died one by one and I DID NOT resize them.

I have no problems with tiles. They all work as they should and I am happy!! HAS ANYONE ELSE EXPERIENCED A SLIGHT LAG while using 7.8? I've gotten used to it but occasionally it is very noticeable, on on these occasions it is very apparent on the start screen...

small tiles don't update..they're just like shortcuts in android..only the phone, mail, messages, marketplace (i.e. system apps) update in small mode..maybe the other apps need updates to make them fully functional..
and overall the start screen has become super laggy..it takes about two seconds for the app/hub to launch after i remove my finger..reset the phone, reinstalled the software..nothing helps..
and one thing i really hated is that they removed the music keys on the lock screen..the whole volume-music control pops down if you unlock the phone while music is playing..eats up half the wallpaper..
and also it vanishes in some time..so i again have to press the volume key if i want to change the song, or pause it..messy stuff..
and it was actually very disappointing..six-seven months wait for wp7.8..and all we got is a irresponsibly patched up start screen..and new accent colours..bing wallpapers is not really something that nice..at least they could've added sms drafts and wifi-alive options..and maybe multiple select option in picture and messaging hub..these things don't require dual cores, right? that's basic phone functionality!
at least nokia gave some help..with bluetooth share..and few other apps..microsoft should behave a little more responsibly..nokia is amazing in it's support..microsoft doesn't seem to care about it's customers..

I agree with you on most of this. From the moment I saw how they ruined Windows Phone with the new Start screen I was shocked. It was like they took everything that they did in design and threw it away (must read: http://pocketnow.com/windows-phone/divine-proportions-why-the-start-page...). Now they went and broke the music controls on the lock screen and live tiles. I said from the beginning I'd much rather Windows Phone 7.8 had IE10 instead of the new Start screen, if they only had so much time to do what they could for Windows Phone 7 devices. The only reason I even upgraded is because AT&T had me stuck on 7720 for a year and a half after the disappearing keyboard had been patched and I got tired of dealing with that. Never would have thought I'd be taking one step forward and two steps back.

That article was kind of suprise for me, hope everything will work fine for you guys and enjoy this great feature. For me any sized tile is working properly, OS tiles, 3rd party tiles, weather tile, etc. Also bettery life holds as before with 7.5. Lumia 800 - 7.8

My tiles are working fine, but battery life is down. I am wondering if it isn't simply that with the greater number of truly live tiles I can now have on my screen that it simply is pulling down content more often. I now have 11 tiles on my initial screen and scrolling one stop I have and additional 12 tiles. The next 14! Astounding. In this third set, they are mostly static (excluding the Calendar here, Delta and AppFlow are the only live tiles in this section) The bottom 2 sets do not update so much I think because I haven't entered to updat the news links.

Those that think the scalable tiles are no big deal, I have so much more usable content, more easily accesssible and grouped more logically than in 7.5. The new Start screen alone was well worth this update.

WPCentral, BBC News Mobile and Facebook tiles have all stopped updating on my HTC Radar c110e since updating to 7.8. Uninstalling them and reinstalling them has not solved the issue. Altering the size of the tiles has also had no effect.

Will someone plz tell me why my HTC 7 Pro USCC hasn't even gotten the 7.8 update??? I have been psyched about this update for MONTHS now, since around October last year...every day I plug my phone into Zune, and I'm so anxious as I wait for that red bar to load, only to give me bad news: "your phone software is the current version" ..... Plz plz >.< someone help meeee!!!!!